Dr. Coplan traces the pathway from internalizing to externalizing behavior. Despair and rage are intertwined, leading to tragic final outcome.

Last time we were talking about internalizing behavior – all the emotional stuff we deal with on the inside. Someone who feels miserable and hopeless will seek a way out of their pain. Too often, the way out is suicide. But there is another, even more horrific end point: All of that despair can suddenly flip over to rage. Now we are talking about the items 7-9 in Lorna Wing’s list:

1. Assumption that the person’s own needs supersede all other considerations
2. Lack of awareness of wrongdoing
3. Intellectual interest (what Asperger himself called “Autistic acts of malice”)
4. Pursuit of “special” interests (objects, people)
5. Vulnerability
6. Cry for help
7. Hostility towards family
8. Hyperarousal
9. Revenge
Take a look at the diagram. I’ve added a big arrow leading from Internalizing Behavior to Externalizing behavior. In this scenario, despair and rage are inextricably intertwined. Newtown, Virginia Tech, Isla Vista, Red Wing, and Columbine were not just “mass shootings.” They were suicides. That fact tends to get ignored, or, if someone raises it, the person who does so gets shouted down as being too sympathetic to the shooter. This is misguided. The only way to reduce the recurrence risk of “the next Newtown” is to take an unbiased view of the shooter’s behavior. (It drives me nuts to hear people characterize Adam Lanza as “evil.” I have blogged at length on that subject, here.) Internalizing behavior often goes through a long gestation period before it finally bursts out as externalizing. The real tragedy is that internalizing behavior is often overlooked until it’s too late.
I’ve also added a smaller, dashed line from social rejection directly to externalizing, but people who externalize right away may be letting off pressure – like a volcano with a vent on the side of the mountain. They sometimes commit violence, but it doesn’t seem to be to the same scale as someone who has been internalizing for a long time. The mass shooters we read about in the headlines are almost always described as quiet, unobtrusive people who had never hurt anyone before their one and only cataclysm.

Dr. Coplan maps the connections between social rejection, internalizing behavior, and suicide risk in persons with autism spectrum disorder. Internalizing behavior usually does not trigger criminal offending, but it can be the prequel to violent externalizing behavior.

The British psychiatrist Lorna Wing passed away last month, after a long career dedicated to bettering the lives of persons with ASD, including her own daughter. It was Lorna Wing who in 1981 coined the term “Asperger Syndrome.” This blog post is dedicated to her memory and legacy.

Here is the list of factors Dr. Wing enumerated as contributors to crime committed by persons on the spectrum (I have re-ordered the items):
1. Assumption that the person’s own needs supersede all other considerations
2. Lack of awareness of wrongdoing
3. Intellectual interest (what Asperger himself called “Autistic acts of malice”)
4. Pursuit of “special” interests (objects, people)
5. Vulnerability
6. Cry for help
7. Hostility towards family
8. Hyperarousal
9. Revenge
In our last post on the subject of ASD and crime, I introduced the term “innocent offending” to describe criminal behavior stemming from the combination of obsessive interests and lack of social awareness (Items 1-4 in Wing’s list). Here, I’ve added another pathway to the diagram, this time leading from social rejection to internalizing behavior.